On Tue, 01 Mar 2011 16:26:05 -0500, Eric Smith <e...@trueblade.com> wrote: > On 3/1/2011 4:19 PM, Kerrick Staley wrote: > > Hello, > > There is a need for the default Python2 install to place a symlink at > > /usr/bin/python2 that points to /usr/bin/python, or for the > > documentation to recommend that packagers ensure that python2 is > > defined. Also, all documentation should be changed to recommend that > > "#!/usr/bin/env python2" be used as the shebang for Python 2 scripts. > > This is needed because some distributions (Arch Linux, in particular), > > point /usr/bin/python to /usr/bin/python3, while others (including > > Slackware, Debian, and the BSDs, probably more) do not even define the > > python2 command. This means that a script has no way of achieving > > cross-platform compatibility. The point at which many distributions > > begin to alias /usr/bin/python to /usr/bin/python3 is due soon, and for > > the next couple of years, it would be best to use a python2 or python3 > > shebang in all scripts, making no assumptions about plain python, which > > should only be invoked interactively. This email from about 3 years ago > > seems relevant: : > > http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-3000/2008-March/012421.html > > Again, this issue needs to be addressed by the Python developers > > themselves so that different *nix distributions will handle it > > consistently, allowing Python scripts to continue to be cross-platform. > > > > I believe we agreed at the language summit last year (or maybe even the > year before) that "python" would always be python2.x, and "python3" > would be python3.x. > > And by "always" we indeed meant forever. To do otherwise would break > scripts even many, many years from now.
It sounds like the distributions aren't going to cooperate with us. Arch has already switched. Gentoo will allow the user to switch /usr/bin/python to point to python3, and I suspect this will become the default at some point. I'm not sad about that, myself. --David _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
